Hello Kitty isn’t a cat?

All of a sudden I feel like my entire life is a complete and utter farce. How is Hello Kitty not a cat.. she has ears for cat’s sake!

Well apparently she’s a girl. A cartoon girl. A British cartoon girl. According to creators Sanario, Hello Kitty is a ‘British school kid called Kitty White, who lives in the suburbs of London, and has a twin sister called Mimmy’. There’s an entire backstory associated with the character, and a whole website dedicated to her biography. ‘She is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She has a pet cat of her own called Charmmy Kitty’.

I guess rather naively, I just presumed she was a Japanese kitty cat. Now it appears I was totally wrong. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought she was a feline?